The Engineering Dream Vs. Reality Crisis

The innocent high schooler's dream of designing cool planes crashes into the harsh reality wall built by engineering students! That moment when you realize those "fun math problems" about trains meeting each other were just the appetizer before they serve you differential equations with a side of thermodynamics. The poor kid's still thinking engineering is just "math and planes and shit" while actual engineering students are having existential breakdowns over their fourth all-nighter this week. It's like wanting to be an astronaut because space is pretty, then discovering you need to understand orbital mechanics first! The academic equivalent of "I came looking for copper and found pain."